SCARRED HEARTS / INIMI CICATRIZATE

1937. Emanuel, a twenty-year old young man suffering from bone tuberculosis, is admitted to a seaside sanatorium. A free adaptation of the writings of M. Blecher.
“My whole effort consists of writing a good, readable book, but that may be too vague for you, so I will explain more. … It is a document of human value, applicable anywhere. Even in my search for character names I made sure to pick well-chosen names, with a general resonance. I will make it so that the reader does not wonder where it is all happening and cares only for the events and cases described. It is so riddled with harsh, heart-wrenching realities that I may have to give up some of them. … There will be graver, more overwhelming realities, operating rooms, bandages changed in white, cold, terrifying clinic rooms and love stories between plaster-clad patients.” (A fragment from a letter written by M. Blecher to poet Geo Bogza, 1936)

“It’s less a film but more a homage to this book and to its writer Max Blecher that I really admire and who is not well known, not even in Romania. He was a Jewish Romanian writer from the thirties, who died very young. His novel and other two books of his are quite autobiographical, depicting his life as a sick young man who eventually died in a sanatorium. I think it’s important, this idea of the relationship with the sickness, the suffering, death. It’s important for me at least.

But also because it talks about the thirties. It is not the main topic but it is a little bit about the extreme right wing parties taking over the countries at this time, which is not a taboo in Romania but people don’t talk about it."

Radu Jude for RoberAwards.com